This poll raised a variety of concerns when it showed up in my mailbox this morning. See below:

What is a very likely voter? I’ve never seen that term in a poll before. I’ve seen likely voter, registered voter and eligible voter, but the insertion of the word “very” tells me that somebody did some selecting. Andy why only a two day window. Most polls survey a length of time-something like 3-5 days.

Also, who paid for this poll. Most polls tell you who paid for it, unless it’s done by a university. Private firms don’t do polling unless they are paid by somebody. Was it a paper? A tv station? A candidate? A party? I’ve noticed that this hasn’t hit any Main Stream outlets yet. I’m guessing reporters may have gotten it, called the number and haven’t received a return call. Our Friend the Big Fat Slob did some digging and made a phone call. Nothing so far.

Additionally, what is the Margin of Error on this poll. How about the Confidence Interval? Do we have the data on the poll?

Finally, why does every poll coming out of the weekend have a 10+% poll while this one doesn’t.

Something isn’t right about this poll, and it isn’t the numbers. This is sloppy at best.

Santorum’s team has long maintained that if they are able to get within 5% of Casey by Election Eve, they’ll prevail, given a tremendously strong GOTV operation on Election Day. According to this poll, they’ve achieved Part 1. Whether this information is believable or not (Santorum fans welcome it while his critics downplay it)is up for debate. I’m not familiar with McCullough’s outfit or his previous work, but I’ve argued for some time that Santorum/Casey wouldn’t result in a 10 point blowout in favor of the challenger. Given the history of the campaign thus far, Casey must be given the edge tomorrow, but Santorum is still alive and kicking. If McCullough is to be believed, Santorum still has a huge hill to climb tomorrow, as 5% is doable, but not without a lot of solid GOTV work by a lot of people. His team must hunt down every vote and cannot afford to take the smallest precinct for granted. A note on the timeframe. I would think a smaller timeframe would be more accurate, as it would take into account voters who change their minds at the last minute (as some may arguably have done in this race). I said months ago this was a 2-3% race either way, and it appears to be panning out in that fashion. It’s anybody’s game now. Who wants it the most?

Seriously, this isn’t going to be a single digit race. Santorm might hit 45% tomorrow.

If I had turned in this kind of work for my master’s degree program, I would never have graduated. I do try to be honest about these things and if this was a reputable poll done with all the matters that I mentioned above, then this could be a different story.

This was done for the express purpose of keeping poorly paid campaign staffers and tired volunteers motivated long enough to make a few more phone calls. Sadly, it won’t work.

Casey by 100k votes or more.

Let’s face it…Ron Klink, a virtual unknown, with a weird name, not a ton of money and no Iraq War hanging over him like the Sword of Damocles ALMOST beat Rick last time out!

This is nolo contendre!

This poll is total bunk and was clearly stage-managed by the campaign.
Besides, EVERYONE has made up their mind by now…

Goodbye St. Torum, goodbye Brainbender; enjoy Election Night!

Piltdown Man